Interviewing Condi....

... will be done Condi's way.

"Do you dream of a fairytale wedding?"/'I think I’m well beyond the fairytale marriage stage."

Piers Morgan inanely interrogating Condoleezza Rice about marriage.

What's with powerful women and thick bumpers of bangs?

Drudge is — I think — implicitly asking with this alignment of photographs:



What drives intelligent women to that hairstyle? Are they thinking something like I don't want those feathery bangs...



... or the classic Louise Brooks straight-across look...



... but I can't have my forehead just out there to be gazed at!



What's wrong with foreheads? Is it that the forehead symbolizes the mind, and a woman can't have you looking straight at that? The intelligence must be filtered. There must be a buffer zone of femininity, so there must be some hair veiling the forehead — the theory seems to be. But why the bumper look that we see in the Drudge trio of Angela Merkel, Condoleezza Rice, and Maureen Dowd?

"The true measure of affirmative action's staying power is that its absence now is virtually inconceivable."

Writes Harvard lawprof Randall Kennedy:

Liberalism has made racial homogeneity uncool and unacceptable. Even many conservatives are made uncomfortable by lily-white gatherings -- hence the enhanced value to the right of Clarence Thomas, Shelby Steele, Condoleezza Rice, Linda Chavez, and any well-spoken Negro or Latino who consorts with the Tea Party crowd. That conservatives practice affirmative action even as they condemn it is a tribute to liberalism's handiwork.

"Could you say 'senator' instead of 'ma'am? It's just a thing. I worked so hard to get that title."

It's just a thing! And another thing is that a sharper, abler... ma'am is eager to undo all the hard work:

U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and GOP candidate Carly Fiorina have already started sharply attacking each other and offering a preview of what could become one of the most compelling Senate races in the country this fall.

"In her 28 years as a career politician, Barbara Boxer is a bitter partisan who has said much but done little," Fiorina said in speech full of barbs at Boxer as she accepted the GOP nomination Tuesday night here. "She gets an A in politics, but she gets an F in achievement."....

Boxer, meanwhile, is one of the more liberal members of the Senate and voted three years ago against a war funding bill that did not include a timeline for withdrawal from Iraq. She is one of the key backers of the climate change legislation in Congress and has voted for almost every part of President Obama's agenda in Washington...

In 2007, in criticizing the Bush administration's policy on Iraq, she highlighted the fact that then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice didn't have children, drawing ire from conservatives.

"Who pays the price?" Boxer asked Rice at a hearing while discussing families who might send their children to war. "I'm not going to pay a personal price. My kids are too old and my grandchild is too young. You're not going to pay a particular price, as I understand it, with immediate family. So who pays the price? The American military and their families."

You may have a title, but you don't have an entitlement.

Condi!

If we get down on our knees and beg, will you come back?

"No dear, you're wrong. We did not torture anyone."

"When [Randy] Jackson (who’s been married since 1995) learned [Condoleezza] Rice wanted to meet him..."

"... 'he was sort of mystified ... but he went.'"

"It’s as if it doesn't matter if you’re Hitler or anyone."

The protest against Condoleezza Rice's return to Stanford University.

Emotional Condi.

IN THE COMMENTS: Verso said:

Very touching comments by Ms. Rice.

Can you imagine the fury and rage we'd be seeing from the Republican Party right now if Michelle Obama said this country "continues to surprise?" Or that the US has not yet perfected the union? It would be fodder for days worth of classic wingnut thrashing and moaning. And they'd never forget it, either: Wingnuts in 2019 would still be reminding us about how Michelle Obama once said she was "surprised" about the USA.

Yes, I can. And let me remind everyone that I saw Michelle Obama give one of the speeches that were supposedly so horrendously anti-American, and as you can see from my report, I thought she was excellent and noticed no flaws.

Condoleezza Rice doesn't "see" herself as running for Vice President.

She doesn't "expect" to be a part of the campaign. So then, she's willing to do it. The real question is: Would it be a good move for McCain? Does it depend on whether Obama picks a woman for his VP nominee?

"Look, I don't comment on other people's comments. I don't have time, all right. I really don't have time to worry about this."

Condoleezza Rice does not have time to worry about Mike Huckabee, who probably thinks that sounds "arrogant."

Think you can startle Condoleezza Rice?

Think again.

"Rice and Bean (yes, hilarious)..."

What's going on here? (Via Memeorandum.)

When Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz tried to hit on...

... Condoleezza Rice.

By the end of the meeting he was babbling. The Pakistanis were shifting uncomfortably. And his voice visibly changed.

Poll shows 2 Republicans Iowans want in the race even more than Fred Thompson.

Condoleezza Rice and Newt Gingrich.

ADDED: In the comments, I make what you might think is an amazing assertion: I have never seen Fred Thompson in any movie or TV show. So there! I think that makes me a good judge of his substance, because I bring no extraneous fondness to the matter. Surprised that I've never watched "Law & Order"?

"Can we marry up those two — or maybe that's the wrong word — can we have some kind of union of those two issues?"

NY Democratic Congressman Gary Ackerman leaned on Condoleezza Rice after she complained about the lack of Farsi and Arabic translators in the State Department:

"It seems that the Defense Department has a 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' when it comes to homosexuals. You don't have such a prohibition in your agency, do you?" Ackerman asked Rice.

"No, we do not," Rice replied.

"Well, it seems that the military has gone around and fired a whole bunch of people who speak foreign languages — Farsi and Arabic, etc.," Ackerman told her.

Ackerman laid it on a little thick:

"For some reason, the military seems more afraid of gay people than they are against terrorists, but they're very brave with the terrorists," Ackerman said.."If the terrorists ever got a hold of this information, they'd get a platoon of lesbians to chase us out of Baghdad."

The remark drew some smiles from fellow members of the panel, but Rice was stone faced.

Oh, wouldn't you like to know all the snappy comebacks that ran through her head and couldn't be said?

"Can we marry up those two — or maybe that's the wrong word — can we have some kind of union of those two issues?" Ackerman asked.

Is this Ackerman character the House comedian?

IN THE COMMENTS: Simon writes:

Congressman Gary Ackerman is full of it. I never tire of pointing out that the Defense Department doesn't have a "'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' [policy] when it comes to homosexuals," Congress imposes that policy on the Department of Defense by statutory law, 10 U.S.C. § 654. Since they have a nice, shiny new majority, and since they clearly have such disdain for Don't Ask Don't Tell, why doesn't the new Democratic majority repeal Don't Ask Don't Tell? Has Congressman Ackerman introduced a bill so to do? Why not?

Now that they're back in the majority, Democrats have no standing whatsoever to criticize Don't Ask Don't Tell until they at least move a bill repealing it through Congress (even if it ultimately gets vetoed). This isn't a military policy. It's Congress' policy. And guess what, Democrats? That means it's now your policy. Take that back to 'Frisco on your private jet, Nancy.